Working Stiff: Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1) (19 page)

Below his naked feet and long toes, shadows still gathered deep on the side of the hill among the boulders and weeds down there.

He still didn’t know why he had made a move on Rox last night. Nothing but heartache could come of it. He might have messed things up between her and her husband, even though Casimir suspected that he was just a pity fuck and she would be repulsed if she ever saw the deformity under that bandage.

No. Not Rox.

She wasn’t like the others.

All the others.

He knew that these whispers were phantom pain, just a memory of heartache from years ago, but the regret amplified them.

And the knowledge that he was going to lose her soon was paralyzing because surely she wouldn’t stay in the same house with him anymore.

Far down below, shadows whispered amongst the rocks, sounding like hard truth.

No one could love the monster.

His bare feet swung over the emptiness as the sun lifted in the sky behind him, heating his back like a hand, pushing.

NOT JUMPING BUT FALLING

Rox stood in the doorway that led to the deck, touching the wall to steady herself, while Cash leaned too far over the thick wooden railing above the cliffside that fell away from the house. The breeze from the ocean, strong this morning, plastered her pajamas to her body, and the deck chilled her bare feet.

He was bending very far over the rail. His feet were planted on the deck, but he rested a lot of his weight on his elbows on the rail, almost as if he were unbalancing, trying to tip over.

Usually, he sat in a deck chair or braced his arms against the railing. He never did this.

The tension in his body screamed that he was stretching to go over the side.

“Cash,” Rox said, careful to keep her voice low as if she were gentling a skittish puppy at the animal shelter. “Cash, honey. Come on inside.”

“I’m just watching the sunrise,” he said, looking out at the grim ocean.

“The sunrise is the other way, toward the mountains. Let’s go look at it together.”

“I’m just standing here.”

She had gentled hundreds of animals at the shelter, those mourning for owners who had dropped them off when it was no longer convenient to have a pet, skittish babies who had never been lifted off the ground before, and abused creatures whose last experience with humans had been vicious.

Cash was no different, except she had no idea what was going on with him.

She said, “I’m going to stand beside you.”

His shoulders shifted, a shrug.

She padded over and leaned her arms on the rail beside him, not touching, not grabbing. The sunrise painted the horizon pink all the way around the bowl of the sky, and the ocean scented the wind with salt and seaweed. “It’s a nice view.”

He nodded.

She let her arm drift closer, touched his elbow, and then threaded her hand through his arm. If he chose to jump, her grip wouldn’t stop him, but she was confident that he wouldn’t drag her with him.

If he wobbled, however, her arm might steady him.

He sighed and looked out at the ocean. A chilly sea breeze needled through Rox’s tee shirt and blew Cash’s hair back from his face.

“Something happen last night, afterward?” she asked.

“I was thinking.”

“Must have been some pretty serious thinking.”

“I’m fine.”

“Let’s go inside, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Breakfast?”

“Sure.”

Once they were inside, Rox locked the doors, not that that would stop him. It might, however, make him pause, make him think.

In the kitchen, Cash sat at the breakfast bar while Rox started the coffee maker and watched it brew, plotting hard. The kitchen was a modernized version of the Spanish colonial decor of the rest of the house, black appliances and quartz countertops topping honey-colored wood cabinets. The brick-red Spanish tile was cool under her feet.

“It’s too chilly out there this morning for just jammies,” she said, handing him a cup.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He sipped the coffee, wincing at the heat.

“How long were you leaning over the railing like that?”

“Since I heard you coming.”

“And before that?”

Cash spooned sugar into his cup. “I had been sitting on the rail.”

Oh, God.
“Why were you doing that?”

“I just found myself up there.”

“Were you thinking about jumping?”

He stirred his coffee. “After a moment, I thought about falling.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No. Jumping means you choose to jump. Falling just happens.”

“Nothing just happens. You had to climb to get up on the railing.”

“I’d been up there for an hour.”

“Sweet baby Jesus, Cash. My butt would have been numb.”

He shrugged.

“Maybe I’m not the most sexually experienced person in the world, but my blow jobs have never driven someone to contemplate suicide before.”

He blinked, and the little shock of what she had said made him smile. “Last night was the best thing that has happened to me in years.”

“I doubt that. I know what your social schedule is like, big guy. So is tempting fate a normal part of your day?”

“No.”

“Then why this morning?”

Cash set his coffee cup very deliberately on the sparkling quartz countertop and turned the cup with his palms. “I’ve never been with a married woman before.”

“We didn’t go all the way. It was just a slip. It wasn’t important enough to get so upset over.”

“It was important to me.”

“How upset are you?”

He turned the cup in his hands. “Have you ever thought about—” he paused, “—falling?”

“Never.”

He looked up at her, his green eyes darkly serious. “That’s a strong response.”

“Suicide is a crime because it’s an act of violence on a whole family and community. It’s a bullet in the heart of everyone who loves them. The people who are left behind grieve for the murder victim and hate the murderer, but they’re both the same person, and you loved them. It’s unbearable.”

He was still watching her, evaluating her every twitch. “Who died?”

Rox swallowed a stinging gulp of coffee before she could answer. “My mother. I was eight. I found her.”

“How did she do it?”

“Shotgun.”

Cash winced and picked up his coffee again. “I’m sorry. That’s brutal.”

“It doesn’t matter
how.
It matters that she
did.”

He nodded, but he was staring into the black depths of his coffee cup.

Rox pushed her mug to the side and picked up one of his hands. His cold fingers chilled hers. How long had he been out there? “I couldn’t stand to lose you.”

His bright green eyes widened, startled, and he glanced at their intertwined hands on the countertop.

“Promise me that you won’t. Promise me that whatever it is, you’ll give it one more day, that you’ll stay with
me
one more day. You have to stay for
me.”

He looked back up to her, and his voice was hoarse. “All right.”

“Promise.”

“I promise,” he said.

She didn’t believe him, not really, but she let go anyway. “Are you sick? Like cancer?”

He shook his head.

“What, then?”

“Just not enough coffee, I imagine.”

“Ever since the accident, you’ve been down. Sometimes you perk up for a while, but then you’re down again. It’s not just your car, right?”

“The Maybach? No. I think I will get something bigger this time.”

“I’ve been watching you for weeks, wondering if this kind of thing was running through your head.”

“I’m fine. I wouldn’t have jumped, and now I’ve promised you that I won’t.”

Rox had heard those kinds of promises before.

CALLING ANA

Rox hid in her bathroom—the cats swarming around her feet and hurriedly crunching kibble from their individual bowls while they had her company—and dialed the long, international number, scrubbing a hot tear out of her eye.

The phone rang.

And rang.

Some of those rings must be bouncing off satellites over the Atlantic Ocean.

Rox bit her lip. Speedbump growled at Midnight, who was nose-nudging him too much in the kibble bowl. She bopped him on the forehead, and he gave her the stink-eye instead.

Some more rings.

“Hallo?”
a woman’s voice asked.

“Hi, I’m looking for Ana, Cash’s sister. This is Roxanne Neil.”

“Hello, Rox. I am pleased to hear from you. Is everything all right?”

“He’s fine right now, but I’m worried about Cash. Has he had a problem with depression?”

Silence until Ana cleared her throat. “We’ve worried about him in the past, but he has refused counseling.”

“I found him leaning over the edge of the deck a little too much this morning, and he said that he had been sitting on the rail. It’s a long way down.”

“I see.” Some rustling.

“I’m really sensitive to this. Some people have cheating antennae, like they can tell when their spouse is cheating to the point where it seems like psychic powers. I have suicide antennae. He’s
radiating
it.”

Ana’s voice was muffled as she said something in what was probably Dutch to someone else, then she said, “Go on.”

“I’ve kind of baby-proofed his house, but I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Can you stay until tomorrow? I would consider it a personal favor.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. I meant more than a couple more weeks.”

“Good. I can’t send minders or doctors because he’ll send them away or walk away from them. I will have two of his friends there tomorrow, Arthur and Maxence. Do you know them?”

Arthur and Maxence?
“He’s never mentioned them.”

“They’re large, strapping young men who should be able to physically forestall any problem and perhaps can bring him around. Don’t tell him that they’re on their way. He’ll raise a fuss, and some things are better done and ask forgiveness later than asking permission before, yes?”

At any other time, Rox would have laughed.

Instead, she said, “Thank you.”

One more day until Arthur and Maxence arrived.

BEFORE SUPPER

Cash leaned against the kitchen counter and fiddled with his phone. “You don’t have to follow me around.”

Rox said, “I wanted a glass of water, too.” And to keep an eye on the knives. “Plus, supper will be delivered in a few minutes. I thought I would grab some silverware and glasses before we go back to work.”

Cash smiled at her, his grin lighting up his bright green eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me. The things that looked quite bleak in the dark and after a few drinks seem more manageable today.”

Indeed, he had exercised in his little home gym, worked on the contracts, and made a dozen phone calls to the office and to clients to schedule meetings over the next few weeks. He’d had an opinion about supper for the first time in ages.

Maybe the near-miss last night had been a turning point. Maybe that was the bottom that he had had to hit before he could fight his way back up.

Yeah, sexytimes with Rox had probably been a low point of Cash’s life.

He had probably been disgusted with himself for getting all hot and bothered with the chubby girl, insta-regret for porking the porker. She’d never seen a guy actually driven to consider suicide by her thunderthighs, but she’d never gotten down with a guy as hot as Cash before, either. He probably had much higher standards, and last night must have driven home just how far he had fallen.

Rox gripped the water glass more tightly because her palms were sweating.

She bet that he would probably get out of the house in the next few days, maybe pick up a skinny California girl in a bar soon after that, and they could have pretty porno sex instead of the grunting and jiggling that no one wanted to watch.

Maybe Rox shouldn’t have narced to Cash’s sister quite so fast. He seemed fine now.

Maybe those two guys, Arthur and Maxence, would take him out when they saw the fluffy girl he was shacked up with, an intervention to make sure he didn’t get involved with a woman of curves.

She wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself, though, and she filled the glass with water from the fridge dispenser.

It was better that the real world intervened now, before Rox got her heart broken or anything.

Outside the window, the sun was drifting down, just touching the Pacific Ocean.
 

Cash said, “We need to start preparing for your next performance as a lawyer. The meeting with DiCaprio’s people is in a few days.”

Her hands went through the motions of gathering flatware and wine glasses while she tried to think of
anything
to say. “You could be disbarred if we got caught.”

“No one will think anything of it.”

“We could both get in serious trouble.”

“It’s just one more time. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”

Maybe it would be just one more time.

The front doorbell rang, echoing chimes through the house. The cats crouched on the floor, suspicious of the tolling.

Rox said, “Oh good, there’s supper. I’ll grab the bags and meet you in the media room.”

SUPPER

Rox set the stack of Styrofoam boxes on the coffee table and turned on the television, flipping to find their favorite comedy news program that they watched while they ate supper every night.

The cats swarmed under the table, jockeying for optimal begging positions, another bad habit they had picked up since moving in with Cash. They used to lay at Rox’s feet under her table until she had finished eating, and then they all went to the kitchen for a little nibble. Now, they were pathetic little beggers.

Cash followed her in, carrying bottles of wine, and Rox didn’t even notice how many bottles he was carrying until he set them on the table with a solid thump. The bottles clanked together.

“Three?” she asked. “I think your fiendish plan just turned into a diabolical plot.”

He laughed, his ringing chortle sounding almost like normal. “Not a diabolical plot. Just making sure that I sleep tonight.”

The blue light from the television glistened on the wine bottles. “Those will certainly do something.”